The tenuous plastic fibers, visible only through the magnified view of a microscope, sent Jacob Peterson reeling into eddies of anxiety.

The sudden upwelling of fear wasn’t completely new. The biology student suffered from anxiety in other areas of his life. But this was the first time his own research triggered the feeling.

“Realizing how much microplastic was in tap water and our drinking water really freaked me out,” he said. “When we started the project, we thought ‘Oh we’re going to find it in a few samples.’ ”

They found more than a few.

“It started to affect me a lot. I would be sitting there looking at my Nalgene and go, ‘Oh my God,’ ” he said.

Researchers ‘stunned’

by prevalence

Over the course of nine weeks in 2018, the avid kayaker and outdoorsman collected a dozen water samples a week from various spots on the Spokane River. Peterson, then a senior at Gonzaga University, processed and analyzed the samples under the tutelage of Betsy Bancroft, a professor of biology and environmental studies at Gonzaga.

Spokane River prime study environment

Research is increasingly showing that microplastics are not confined to the oceans. The Spokane River, as urban and relatively short as it is, offers a prime study environment.

“Spokane is a pretty unique system, being as short as it is,” said Joanne Smieja, a chemistry and biochemistry professor at Gonzaga working with Bancroft. “If we can say something about what is happening here, I think it will add a lot to the story of other rivers.”

Despite flowing through the second-largest urban area in the state, much of the river’s ecology remains unstudied. For instance, the Spokane Riverkeeper is just now starting to take systematic temperature measurements in an effort to accurately track global warming’s impact on river health.

Studying microplastic proliferation in the river fits into that larger goal, said Jerry White, the Spokane Riverkeeper.

“I think all that is poorly understood,” he said.

The Spokane Riverkeeper and Gonzaga University will continue to partner on studies like Peterson’s, White said, and his study will be submitted for publication and peer review sometime this year.

The only other study that looked at plastics in the river was conducted in 2017 by a Lewis and Clark High School senior who found microplastics in the guts of Spokane River whitefish. No studies had looked at microplastics in the water itself.

Peterson modeled much of his study methodology off the Florida Microplastic Awareness Project. He sampled the river upstream and downstream of the Spokane Wastewater Treatment Plant in an effort to determine if the plant is an entry point for microplasitcs into the river.

It is.

Microplastics were found in every sample Peterson collected. During one high-water event in April, Peterson found 47 microplastics per liter. The lowest sample recorded was one microplastic a liter in early March. On average, Peterson found 12.1 micro plastics per liter.

More of the mostly invisible plastics were found below the Wastewater Treatment Plant than upstream. This finding is supported by the 2017 study which found higher concentrations of plastic in whitefish near the treatment center.

Where these plastics come from isn’t clear, although Peterson points to a study commissioned by Patagonia in 2016 that found that laundering fleece and other synthetic clothing released as many as 250,000 synthetic fibers. Sun, wind, waves and heat break macroplastics into successively smaller pieces in oceans. Plastic trash in and along the Spokane River could be behaving the same way. although that has yet to be studied.

In the future, Bancroft hopes to do just that. Although most of the Spokane region’s potable water comes from the aquifer, she expects future research to confirm plastic in the area’s subterranean reservoir.

“Just based on the sort of exchange that we have between that aquifer and the river, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were in the aquifer,” she said.

‘I can’t drink this’

Microplastics, CO2 emissions, PCBs and other invisible pollutants can induce a particular kind of stress. An overwhelming hopelessness triggered by the ubiquity of the problem combined with its near invisibility. Some psychologists have dubbed this “eco-anxiety.” A 2017 report by the American Psychological Association documented how the ongoing specter of global warming is causing chronic, low-level stress in many.

That was what Peterson felt while studying microplastics.

“I had to go to counseling after I really dove into it,” he said. “Because I would try and drink tap water. I’d grab my water bottle and I’d have this panic attack. I can’t drink this. I can’t drink this.”

Hurst has also felt some anxiety continuing the research Peterson started. But once he realized there was little he could do about it in the short term, he relaxed.

“I think that’s the part that keeps me sane about it,” he said. “I’m not going to go through the process of filtering out microplastics every time I want a glass of water.”

Instead, he hopes his research can add to the overall knowledge about the issue and eventually lead to a solution.

Peterson said his anxiety has subsided, to some extent. But the intractable nature of the problem remains.

“Plastic is such a big part of our lives,” he said in a phone interview. “I tried to cut it out as much as I could but I can’t.”

At that moment, he wore several layers of fleece clothing. As he talked, he scraped accumulated snow and ice off his car after a day of working as a ski patroller on Mount Spokane.

“The reality of it all is plastic is everywhere,” he said. “I’m holding this plastic ice scraper thing right now … probably every time I knock ice off my car, I’m knocking a bunch of microfibers into the environment.”